The next morning, Piper was coming over and we'd be talking to Harry about the hearing. But there was one problem, nobody but me and Dumbledore knew about Pipers visit. I didn't think Sirius would be too happy.
I got up and saw that Harry must have gone down stairs, Ron was still snoring, fast asleep.
I went downstairs for breakfast, Harry and Molly were the only ones up.
"Good Morning Molly, Harry." I called as I made my way towards Mrs. Weasley. "What's cooking?"
She looked surprised that I was talking to her, even a little fearful. Then I remembered about yesterday. How I made the sink explode and the Earth tremble.
"Sorry about yesterday." I said, I wanted to have these people trust me after all.
"Oh dear, sorry about what?"
"My behavior, I shouldn't have left like that. It's bad manners after all." They didn't know I caused the little 'event.' That made things a lot simpler although I was pretty sure they suspected me.
"Oh, it's alright Perseus. Sirius shouldn't have accused you like that." Said Molly, smiling at me. I liked her, she reminded me of my mother. Gentle, but can be harsh. Always kind to those who she thinks deserve it.
"How about I help you prepare breakfast." I smiled, grabbing some 'ingredients' for pancakes. Surprisingly they had blue food coloring.
In case you want to try my fabulous cooking, I'll tell you my recipe. Aboard the Argo II, pancakes have become my specialty. I call them
PERCY'S DAM BLUE, GREEK YOGURT PANCAKES.
8 ounces of Greek yogurt, best if made by Hermes himself.
7 tablespoons of beautiful flour, Demeter's specialty.
1 tablespoon of sugar, remember kids. A... SPOONFUL OF SUGAR HELPS THE MEDICINE GO DOWN!
1 teaspoon of baking powder. Is Apollo here? Or is it just me.
1⁄2 teaspoon of salt. Why are monsters so salty?
2 large eggs. Dragon eggs are the best, but that's just cruel.
1⁄2 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Sweet as Annabeth.
AND
LOTS OF BLUE FOOD COLORING!
Place Greek yogurt in a medium bowl. Add flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir together very gently. GENTLY AS CAN BE! Stop short of the mixture being totally combined as to add texture.
Whisk eggs in a separate bowl. Add vanilla to eggs and stir to combine. Pour egg mixture into the Greek yogurt-flour mixture. Stir together gently. Add blue food coloring. Stir again.
Pour the batter onto a griddle sprayed with cooking spray, ¼ cup at a time. Cook for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes, then flip the pancakes. Cook for another 45 seconds and remove to plate. Repeat with the remaining batter.
I learned that from Leo. Just saying.
So, after making my famous blue pancakes. I ate some of them. Not all, just about a fifth of the whole stack. The stack was huge.
Molly used some kind of spell so that after I finished baking about fifteen batches, I could stack all of them together. 80 pancakes high! That left Harry dumbfounded, as well as anyone else who just so happened to walk in.
Once the important people were seated, Sirius, Remus, Tonks and Arthur, I decided to mention Piper's visit.
"My friend, Piper's coming. She's going to help with the hearing. She should be here any minute now." I said casually while eating my pancakes.
"WHAT!" Screeched Sirius.
"She's gonna come t-" I started but was interrupted by a doorbell.
"That's her." I said smiling.
The next second I heard the door open, followed by Mrs. Black's screams of HALFBREED! BLOODY DISGRACE! HALF-BREEDS AND MUD-BLOODS AND BLOOD TRAITORS ALL IN THE SAME HOUSE! MY HOUSE OF NOBLE BLACK! SHAME ON YOU SIRIUS! LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO OUR BELOVED MANOR!
A slam of a door, Lupins yell, and Remus came into the kitchen followed closely by Piper.
"Dumbledore told me." He explained after seeing Sirius' accusing glare.
"Seaweed Brain!" Said Piper upon seeing me. I ran up to her and engulfed her in a hug. For the last month we've become really good friends. With Leo's death, we became pretty close. Not like me and Annabeth close, or Piper and Jason close or Frank and Hazel close. Not even Piper and Leo close, just like Leo and Frank close. No romance, do not worry. Wise girl is my one and only and I'm pretty sure Piper feels the same way about Jason.
Ok I'm getting off topic. What I'm trying to say is that Leo's death has been hard on Piper, so I've tried filling in as him. I know I'm nothing like Leo but I've tried.
"Hey Beauty Queen." I said. Then I noticed she was crying. "What's the matter?"
"Oh Kelp Head," she sobbed, "Repair Boy's returned! We've got a message. He came back with Calypso and Festus!"
SHOCKED!
That's all I could think.
"That's great!" I said. "How did you manage to find the time to come though?"
"Miss Metal Detector and Fai went back to help Reyna. Koala Man has a lot of stuff to worry about now that he's in charge. Death Breath and Sparky have to help their fathers with things... Owl Face went to Boston and McShizzle's with Calypso. They said something about a repair shop."
"Eh em." Someone cleared their throat behind me.
I was greeted with not many friendly faces when I turned around. Oh! I forgot about introductions.
"Oh, this is Piper McLean, daughter of A-" I stopped, an elbow was jammed straight into my rib cage.
"Daughter of who?" Asked Ron with an accusing glare.
"Tristan McLean." Said Piper smoothly, nice save. "But I don't like to mention it, unlike Aquaman over here." She glared at me, a cold glare.
"Ya, sorry. This is Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Sirius Black, Tonks, Bill Weasley, Fred and George Weasley, Arthur Weasley, Molly Weasley, Ginny Weasley and Remus Lupin."
"Nice to meet you all. I'm here to help with this hearing." Piper said smiling.
"How exactly are you going to help Harry?" Asked Sirius glaring at Piper.
"She can be very convincing." I laughed, an image of Piper charm speaking Sirius into doing stupid things in my mind.
"Oh really?" He mocked. "How is being convincing going to help Harry?"
"Ah, never doubt McLean, it will end with your death."
Cue the gasp from Hermione.
"I demand you to stand up and start singing... hm... the duck song. And dance."
Oh this was gonna be good, I could feel myself wanting to stand up and start singing but Pipers voice was directed at Sirius. Immediately he stood up. And...
I don't wanna be a chicken,
I don't wanna be a duck so I shake my butt.
na na na na na na na na na na na na
I don't wanna be a chicken,
I don't wanna be a duck so I shake my butt.
na na na na na na na na na na na na
I don't wanna be a chicken,
I don't wanna be a duck so I shake my butt.
na na na na na na na na na na na na
I burst out laughing. The best thing was Sirius' dancing. It was brilliant, bloody brilliant as the brits would say. He was getting down low, shaking that rear end. He was an awesome dancer I gotta admit.
"Stop." Laughed Piper after the hundredth repeat. "You still doubt that I could convince these wizards to let Harry go?" She asked, a smirk was playing on her face.
"Oh, no." Said Bill, horrified.
"How did you do that?" Asked the twins in union.
"Ah, just a little gift I have." She smiled.
"Come, I'll take you to your room." Said Remus, looking at Piper weirdly. He reached for Pipers bag but I stopped his hand. "I'll take it, she probably filled it with rocks."
I was half right. I could feel, literally feel all the weapons in Pipers bag.
We went up the long, spiraling staircase. The gray, old wood creaking beneath our feet. A smell of death in the air as we passed the severed fairy heads, they were beautiful. So gorgeous, I just love Death. Actually, Thanatos isn't that bad looking.
We stopped at the end of the hall of the second floor, there stood a door. It was cleaner than the rest and when we went in, I saw two twin beds with books thrown across one and magazines across the other.
"Oh excuse me." Lupin pointed at one of the beds, muttered some weird words that I didn't get and with a pop! another bed popped out of thin air.
"Nice." I said.
"Thanks Remus. See you later I guess." Said Piper as Lupin was leaving.
"So, what does the letter look like? Do you have it? Can I see?" I asked eagerly.
Piper opened her bag and after a lot of looking around, she took out a scroll. "Here, open it."
I unrolled the scroll, the paper felt ancient. It had a nice smell to it, like roses in the spring. On the inside there was a hologram. It looked like an Iris message but instead of talking at the same time, it was recorded and sent.
Leo was on Festus with a familiar face behind him. Someone I never thought I'd see again.
"Hey guys!" Said Leo smiling, "Sorry to say that I'm alive. I took that potion and all that stuff but the important part is that I found Calypso!"
She smiled and waved. "Anyway," continued Leo, "We'll visit for a while in about a month or so but me and Calypso are going to visit around the world. Then we'll open our own repair shop. Hugs and kisses from McShizzle!"
The scroll bound back together.
"Wow." I breathed, "That's great!"
"You should have seen Jason." Laughed Piper, "He started crying with joy."
I burst out laughing. "Like you weren't."
"Shut up Jackson." She said punching me in the arm.
Silence fell as me and Piper heard something on the other side of the door. A thump, a shriek and a knock.
I had my hand in my pocket, Piper was reaching for Katoptris. "Come in." I called. To my relief Fred and George popped their heads in.
"Come on-"
"-we're cleaning-"
"-and you're helping."
They finished together reminding me too much of the Stolls.
"Ya we're coming." Replied Piper grabbing my wrist and pulling me down the stairs of doom.
"Oh, thank you children. We're going to need some help over here. Theses doxies just don't want to leave."
I didn't know what doxies were but I was pretty sure they weren't cute, fuzzy little animals. Like a poodle. Or Mrs. O'Leary.
"Right, you lot, you need to be careful, because doxies bite and their teeth are poisonous. I've got a bottle of antidote here, but I'd rather nobody needed it."
She walked around the positioned kids and gave them each a bottle. That included me and Piper.
"When I say the word, start spraying immediately," she said. "They'll come flying out at us, I expect, but it says on the sprays one good squirt will paralyze them. When they're immobilized, just throw them in this bucket."
She carefully positioned herself along side everyone else, raised her bottle. "Squirt!"
I started spraying at random. I'm not a child of Apollo nor a Hunter of Artemis so my accuracy wasn't the best but I managed.
Suddenly a giant doxy flew out of the curtains, shiny beetle like wings whirring, tiny needle-sharp teeth bared, its fairylike body covered with thick black hair and its four tiny fists clenched with fury. Disgusting. I sprayed it square in the face and it feel on the floor with a loud thump.
This went on for about two hours until finally all the little demon baby bats were put to sleep. A deep sleep.
"So," I said after we were done, "Would it be possible to maybe, go on a little run?"
"Um, sure." Said Mrs. Weasley. "If you want, just don't get lost and come back for lunch."
"Thanks. Come on Piper."
"So, you're supposed to help this Harry guy." Said Piper. We were out running, sitting stuck in a mansion is not good for my ADHD.
"Protect him and all that jazz. Dumbledore knows Chiron but I don't think anyone else does. Except for Severus."
"Oh how's he doing?" She asked, "I haven't seen him since after the freeing Hera quest."
"He's fine, you'll get to as him soon. But Pipes, I need help here."
"What is it?" She asked, something weird in her eyes.
"I don't think they trust me but, on the other hand my bloodline murdered Harry's parents." I smiled.
"That's a very lame joke." She pointed out, "But, you just need to gain their trust."
"Easy said, hard do. Try making friends with wizards who want to skin you alive!"